Posted 4 years ago on March 28, 2012, 11:55 p.m. EST by francismjenkins
(3713)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

Here's one of mine (I'm sure many will agree):

To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place[d] under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality. —P. J. Proudhon, "What Is Government?"

56 Comments

"The essence of all slavery consists in taking the product of another's labor by force. It is immaterial whether this force be founded upon ownership of the slave or ownership of the money that he must get to live" -Leo Tolstoy

“I think it only makes sense to seek out and identify structures of authority, hierarchy, and domination in every aspect of life, and to challenge them; unless a justification for them can be given, they are illegitimate, and should be dismantled, to increase the scope of human freedom.”

There is a very great deal to be said for the Anarchist plan of allowing necessaries, and all commodities that can easily be produced in quantities adequate to any possible demand, to be given away freely to all who ask for them, in any amounts they may require. The question whether this plan should be adopted is, to my mind, a purely technical one: would it be, in fact, possible to adopt it without much waste and consequent diversion of labor to the production of necessaries when it might be more usefully employed otherwise? I have not the means of answering this question, but I think it exceedingly probable that, sooner or later, with continued improvement in the methods of production, this Anarchist plan will become feasible; and when it does, it certainly ought to be adopted.
— Bertrand Russell, Proposed Roads to Freedom, 1919

I like that idea (first proposed by Proudhon I think, and echoed by many anarchist thinkers since). I'm not sure though that we need to reach this far in our thought. Is something like that economically feasible? To be honest, I'm not sure (and I'm not aware of anything like this in recent history that worked on a long term basis, although that fact certainly doesn't preclude the idea).

What we do know is some aspects of direct democracy have worked effectively for a long time in many of our states. We also know that employee owned and managed companies tend to outperform their conventional counterparts. We also know money has a corrosive influence in politics. We know sensible financial regulations have insured the stability of our financial sector for seven decades.

Moving in this direction implies moving towards a world where we can figure out the feasibility of more ambitious ideas. Put it this way, if we had the power to hold a recall election, and vote out people like Bloomberg, he would be more responsive to the people, and less likely to keep a police commissioner who can only be described as an aggressive authoritarian.

In general, I reject the consequentialist idea that the ends justify the means. However, this doesn't obligate us to a dogmatic ideology that doesn't recognize the obvious, like we're more like to induce change if we follow a logical sequence of actions e.g. we pick the low hanging fruit from the tree before we try and climb our way to the top.

In other words, we need to have a sufficient amount of flexibility. Things that are unable to respond to circumstances are more likely to die. This is a simple and unquestionable law of nature, adaptability promotes fitness, and fitness promotes success.

I mean, if "power corrupts" then "power" is a bad idea, right? So in essence, if you like your saying so much (and I agree, it's a good saying), then how can you advocate granting the few power over the many? Either you like corruption, or you don't like (or understand) the concept of logical contradiction.

No I do not accept that power corrupts in any necessary way! Hence I do not like corruption.

The reason that I do not accept that power always corrupts is that people have different characters and some are more corruptible than others. Power brings this out in some - but powerlessness among the masses can also engender a savage outpouring from the mob as well!

So I agree that it is a popular saying - but it is NOT a good saying, because it is wrong in that it covers up the vital essence of mankind viz: that individuals have different characters and that recognition of such character differences is vital for the future of mankind.

Hence too egalitarian democracy is NOT the viable future for mankind. Rather, the search for and promotion of better people to rule is the big task - as well as finding the correct philosophical line.

What about, rather than throwing up our hands and believing that some humans simply aren't fit to rule themselves, we instead focus on improving the human race to the extent it can be improved? Just an idea. I think it's probably true that even the best of the best can be corrupted under the right conditions, and granting absolute power is (and always has been) corrupting. The idea that we should put so much faith in humans (no matter how "good" we perceive them to be), requires a level of potential human infallibility that simply isn't supported by the evidence.

Well the best can be corrupted - and that has happened under modernity, especially under the philosophical perversions paraded under the holy name of Sir Karl Popper. However this cannot be a permanent situation.

I am not throwing up my hands in hopelessless. Rather I am looking for those who realize and feel that they have the right to rule since they have the right ideas and the right character.

People are neither fully fallible nor fully infallible - but some have a better character for rulership than others and such character differences between individuals is obvious.

Once you concede that simple point, our task is to find and train such people rather than throwing everything back into the swamp of superstition and prejudice called "genuine democracy".

Your implied claim that genuine democracy should transcend all is NOT supported by any evidence since it puts the unreliable rabble - and their hidden capitalist masters - in the drivers' seat. Even Lenin realized this as he began to curb democracy as various disasters beset the Soviet Union.

And look what Lenin accomplished (disaster) ... so I'm not sure how you use his approach as a demonstration case. I understand that the snails pace of ground up change makes a top down approach tempting, but there is evidence that genuine democracy can be a better approach. First, employee owned and managed firms are both more productive compared to their conventional counterparts, and they survive longer. Secondly, plenty of our states allow recall elections and referendum voting (and most of them seem to be doing just fine).

I'd love to see a rigorous study on this. My hypothesis is that liberty correlates with economic and societal success, and if we put different approaches to governance on a graphical scale, we would find that (in general) the closer a system reaches to genuine democracy, the more successful its society is (using all the standard metrics).

In the largest and most significant study to date of the performance of ESOPs in closely held companies, in 2000 Douglas Kruse and Joseph Blasi of Rutgers University found that ESOPs increase sales, employment, and sales/employee by about 2.3% to 2.4% per year over what would have been expected absent an ESOP. ESOP companies are also somewhat more likely to still be in business several years later. This is despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that ESOP companies are substantially more likely than comparable companies to offer other retirement benefit plans along with their ESOP.

In addition to providing for voting[5][6] the people of Colorado have reserved initiative of laws and referendum of laws enacted by the legislature to themselves[7][8]

...the people reserve to themselves the power to propose laws and amendments to the constitution and to enact or reject the same at the polls independent of the general assembly and also reserve power at their own option to approve or reject at the polls any act or item, section, or part of any act of the general assembly.[9]

I think there's "potentially" just as many of these people around as there's always been. I mean, we haven't biologically evolved since the 1960's (evolution is a very slow process). I think maybe there's a bit of each of these people in everyone, potentially, and none of the people on this list were infallible.

The people generally can be made more content and more participatory in a better system - but such a better system that the one we have will not be an egalitarian democratic one.

Anarchists might not think everyone equally good but they continually cut down and abuse those who see further than their idiotic democratic-egalitarian phrases. Despite your misleading claim to the contrary anarchists DO IN PRACTICE treat everyone as inherently equally good. What can the egalitarian claim of "one man, one vote" refer to otherwise?

Rather, it will be a system that recognizes that power is essential and the best have to be found - and they have the right to rule.

You claim that power always corrupts - which is a stinking lie serving only the leveling claim that "everyone must be inherently good and thus equal" - but you forget that both learned ignorance and impotence each corrupt people just as much.

For example the hysterical rabble in the Spanish Civil War - quite happy to kill the local priest or run him out of the village - but unwilling to be involved in organized battle formations to fight the Catholic church reassembling elsewhere under Franco. Since they can "think locally" only they were completely oblivious to the larger issues - and unwilling to be told otherwise.

Consider Ken Loach's film "Land and Freedom" which brings out anarchist pariochiality beautifully. Franco won because he deserved to, not just because of Communist brutality, killing Trotskyists etc., but because of the anarchists impracticability and inherent disorganization (the best Communist fighters were better than the anarchists, as Hugh Thomas's work reveals).

If OWS clings to the anarchist nonsense (such as the Chomsky chumps serve it up) it has no future at all.

I said anarchists probably don't THINK everyone to be equally. "No one" ever said people weren't treated like equals. That's a big difference.

If you can give me an example in history where power didn't naturally corrupt a government over time, then I'll concede. Unfortunately, we have great examples in Greece, Rome, China, England, France, the United States, and Spain that suggest power eventually corrupts and dismantles a once dominant government. I suppose we can suggest that the Dalai Lama hasn't been corrupted by power, but, well, he'd probably be in favor of anarchism (or at least socialism) over what we have now.

So it's not a lie, but a historical analysis to suggest that power eventually corrupts.

Consider John Cassavetes' film "Faces." Capitalism is an institution which subverts human nature and forces us to carry around masks throughout our lives. That's what happens when you champion money over anything really meaningful.

If Americans cling to false principles of Capitalism/Imperialism, we're not going to last much longer as a dominant nation (like Rome, Greece, England).

That we cannot find prolonged non-corrupt government (power) systems does not mean that uncorrupted leaders do not and cannot exist. Your negativism towards this implies that all mankind can ever achieve under anarchism is mere squabbling little communities regularly manipulated by middle men (capitalistic types) who can always fool them with democratic prattle about egalitarianism.

'And so I have to agree with you that capitalism/imperialism is based on false principles. What we have to do is to identify these since there is more than is obvious.

Anarchism can still be democratic. Anarchy would result in a more sophisticated system of checks and balances than what we have right now, since all social entities would be held accountable by their local communities. Anarchist tyranny would be less likely than in a Republic since greater power is both harder to obtain and the leaders in the anarchist community would be held accountable directly to their community.

With respect to George Washington, whom I do admire, we're not building an army, we're advocating true democracy. What I think people should at least be aware of, is different circumstances often require a different approach, and dogmatic ideology is rarely a good approach to problem solving.

As someone who served in the Army for 9 years, I can attest to the fact that a strong structure, and chain of command, works very well in that context. However, this doesn't say anything about the effectiveness or lack thereof of a leaderless structure (maybe structure is a bad word here, but anyway) in the context of how we manage our every day lives.

Can anyone say more control over their own lives is a per se bad idea? I think the opposite is true, it's a per se good idea, and therefore if we're going to make presumptions, we should presume on the side of liberty. However, revolutionary change can happen in a gradual and peaceful way, giving us the opportunity to figure out what works best.

We are building an army, an army of ideas. People like to think it is something new but there is nothing new under the sun. These conflicts we are discussing have been discussed since the beginning. You can't take food out of the wolves mouth. Peace is nice idea but an incomplete idea.

So this duke is making a statement "against" anarchism .... and with what evidence? Or should we understand this statement for what it is, I'm a duke, I like being a duke, and it seems to me that any system where I can't be a duke, must suck :)

Not my ideas (at least not originally), I quoted Proudhon (and if you're saying he wasn't a good anarchist, well, suffice it to say, I disagree). But anyway, I'm quite sure you don't speak for everyone (which is itself contradictory to the concept of anarchism).

No miscommunication on my part, just another disconnect on yours. Again your reply has no relevance to the place where you posted it. Perhaps NYC has a 12-step program to help you identify which 12-step programs would benefit you the most. Good luck to you...